THURSDAY 9/7

TALKDEMONIC, PLEASE STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE, HORSE FEATHERS, HUSKY RESCUE, JUDAH JOHNSON

(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Talkdemonic... woo­ooohoohoo, you two got the bang (i.e., viola plus drums instrumental post-rock heaven) that makes me say delirious shit like, "Portland's so lucky! We're so lucky! Lucky! Lucky!" Please Step Out of the Vehicle... man, you dudes... I'm almost speechless here... your new record, Sleeping Right and the Best in Homeopathic Magic, is this great jumble of basement instruments and beautifully fun pop arrangements. Horse Feathers... I... again, how do I explain my love without sounding like a stupid doofus? A'ight, yo, I'm gonna get stoned RIGHT NOW and go listen to your sweet Nick Drake-y Words Are Dead. Is Justin Ringle the best singer in PDX? I dunno, but dude's got my favorite voice in all the land. GRANT MORRIS

THE BLACK KEYS, BEATEN AWAKE

(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) Bring your safety glasses to this show—you're in for some serious carnage. I saw a Black Keys show a couple of years ago, and from the minute I saw Patrick Carney sit down at his drum kit I knew I was going to walk away happy. Huge splinters of wood were flying from his drumsticks by the second song, while Dan Auerbach sang like he was seriously hemorrhaging. Carney's drumsticks were whittled down to flimsy toothpicks by the fifth song, and at the end of the show when he was drenched with drummer sweat he'd gone through three pairs of sticks. He's like your whittlin' grandpa, but way fiercer... so actually he's more like a rabid rock 'n' roll beaver. COURTNEY FERGUSON

THE MINDERS, SUPER XX MAN, SHAKY HANDS, JOHN WEILAND

(Towne Lounge, 714 SW 20th Pl) Hard work deserves to be rewarded, though oft times the toil is for naught. The Shaky Hands work hard: manning a construction business by day, and moonlighting in an array of other projects as diverse as the Castanets and Euromotion. Among the blur, the Hands have forged their debut full-length recording and pounded through sweaty sets in musky pallet-board rooms, ironing out a strong support lattice on their home turf. The last time they played the Towne Lounge, Janet Weiss was in attendance, purportedly awestruck. Weeks later, Sleater-Kinney threw in the towel. There is no coincidence here. The old guard is stepping aside and the kids are on the come up. This corner of time will be remembered as their pivotal moment, when all the sweat and struggle finally paid off. O.RYNE WARNER

FLYNG FORTRESS, THE COOKS, MDC

(Ash Street Saloon, 225 SW Ash) See Music, pg. 20.

JAY CHARLES, OVERKILL, INTO ETERNITY

(Sabala's, 4811 SE Hawthorne) It's legitimate to declare that the visionary assault of thrash metal (with all the Hamm's-can brain trauma and miles of spastic hair) eclipsed brilliantly in the dusk of '87, the peak year for half of the Big Four (Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth) and others who easily shredded gusto insanity beyond some of those more popular tyrants. The altruistic speed metal of NYC's Overkill easily dethrones Anthrax's gag-metal and the misty-eyed narcissism in Megadeth. With virtues stripped from vocalist Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth's early days in classic punk band D.O.A., axe killer Bobby Gustafson, thick-stringer D.D. Verni, and skinster Rat Skates created an ideal style divided by Lemmy-sexuality ("Fateful if Swallowed" off Taking Over) and Maiden-eats-Ramones riffage ("Rotten to the Core" from Feel the Fire). It also helped that Blitz's uniquely shrill vocal had more range than Oklahoma. The dawn of the '90s saw a revised lineup with the remaining originals in Blitz and Verni and a new dual guitar blitzkrieg that helmed Horrorscope: a thrashterpiece that was slept on as millions were hip to a certain black-colored album. Atlantic didn't waste time dropping them after a failed grunge attempt in I Hear Black. And through years of decay they still soldier on. Currently, Blitz, Verni, and Co. are steamrolling through their 14th record on the strength of 2005's RelixIV. Tonight will force an unavoidable sonic lightning storm. Mob down early and try not to be mesmerized by BC's Into Eternity, the Rush of death metal. JJ DIXON

FRIDAY 9/8

AAN, TRAIN TO NOWHERE, AH HOLLY FAM'LY

(Valentine's, 232 SW Ankeny) It's always nice to act as door greeter and be like, "Welcome to town. Your music is beautiful. We love you very much." So, all that and more to recent transplants Ah Holly Fam'ly who are celebrating new kid on the block status by playing their first Portland show tonight at Valentine's. With nylon-stringed guitar, Rhodes, banjo, singing saw, bells, etc., Ah Holly Fam'ly builds this great rockpile of avant-Americana that's careful but solid. It's the kind of thing that's gentle (like Little Wings, Karl Blau) but isn't wimpy or shaky at all; everything is confident, balanced, and smart. So there. Welcome to town. Your music is beautiful. We love you very much. ADAM GNADE

CENTRO-MATIC, ERIC BACHMANN, RICHARD BUCKNER, RICHMOND FONTAINE, DOLOREAN

(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) I Googled each of these acts plus the word "genius," and here's a small sampling of what I learned about how brilliant this (very impressive) lineup of male singer/songwriters is: "Will Johnson [Centro-Matic] is a genuine freak-pop genius." (Daily Lobo, Albuquerque) "I think Eric Bachman is a fucking musical genius." (evilsponge.org) "Richard Buckner is an overlooked genius in our midst." (amazon.com review) "Richmond Fontaine—Genius? Madness? Both?" (Americana UK) "When Doc turned that Dolorean into a time machine and sent Marty McFly to the '50s in Back to the Future? Pure genius!" (messageboard.alexpkeaton.com) CHAS BOWIE

SILVER JEWS, STEPHEN MALKMUS, VIVA VOCE, TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS

(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) See Music, pg. 19 and The Scene Report, pg. 27.

LIFESAVAS, LITTLE BROTHER, M-1 OF DEAD PREZ, UMI, BOOM BAP PROJECT, DJ KEZ

(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) I am often late: to work, to dentist appointments, to parties, to the hopping on of bandwagons. And I will admit that I came late to Dead Prez, who only caught my eyes/ears first in last year's excellent concert film, Dave Chappelle's Block Party, in which—among a slew of other astonishing hiphop acts—Dead Prez fucking stole the show, with a rendition of their song "Hip Hop" that, with a pounding bassline and increasingly urgent and angry vocals, essentially blew the goddamn roof off the theater. Next up: their jaw-droppingly great video for "Hell Yeah," which starts with a stereotypical, vacationing honky family getting carjacked by Dead Prez, at which point the family's camcorder records the duo as they gleefully commit Things That Terrify Rich White People: ID theft, random brutality, stealing food stamps, ripping off employers. It's smart, hard-hitting stuff, with great hooks and searing lyrics, and one half of Dead Prez, M-1, is in town tonight. Go to this. Don't be late. ERIK HENRIKSEN

THE ZOMBIES, PHANTOM PLANET, MOONEY SUZUKI, THE WOGGLES, THE NICE BOYS

(Berbati's, 10 SW 3rd) Ooh, shit, man—Marissa is dead. Dead, dead, dead. Thank Christ—she was really starting get annoying, yeah? But okay, now that she's dead—after that car wreck, remember, when the car caught on fire Ryan carried her in his arms, in slow mo, away from the flames, while yet another sappy cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" played?—this is how I look at things: more time for Summer, man! Summer was always hotter than Marissa anyway, but damn, that bitch dragged Summer down, know what I'm saying? And like this: Remember when Ryan used to fight people? And be a badass? And then he and Marissa started doing it and he got boring and pussified? Well, now she's gone—which means Ryan's gonna start punching people again! As for Seth, well—Seth's always pretty much the same, whiny and dorky and adorable and all that. But when Phantom Planet's "California" song kicks up at the onset of the season premiere of The O.C. (Thursday, November 2 at 9/8 pm central!), I'm gonna be stoked, 'cause shit, man, here's where everything gets good again, you know? Thanks for your tiresome theme song or whatever, Phantom Planet, but thanks way more to Marissa: Thank you for finally, finally dying. EH

SATURDAY 9/9

STARS OF TRACK AND FIELD, CROSSTIDE, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA, CAVES, EVENING EPISODE, DERBY

(Berbati's, 10 SW 3rd) In yet another case of local boys do fantastically good, Portland's Stars of Track and Field are blowing up right now in a major (label) way. Recently signed to biggie label Wind-Up Records (home to creeps like Evanescence, Scott Stapp) the indiepop band is destined for some arena-rock craziness in the coming months. Big beauty on this bill, however, is Sacramento-based electro band the Evening Episode. The group's new long-player, The Physicist Has Known Sin, rocks the triphop pace of Portishead without actually sounding like triphop. More so, it's like simmering '80s soundtrack hits plus a girl singer with a snaky, classic pop-singer voice, and sensibilities taken straight from 2006-specific indierock. Hear me now, believe me later (when you see this band all over Pitchfork and the big music mags). BRENT RICHARDSON

THE HELIO SEQUENCE, BRITT DANIEL OF SPOON, JEREMY ENIGK, SMOOSH

(Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside) What the world needs now is a new, badass Spoon record. And Britt Daniel's solo outing at the Crystal should give some clues as to whether or not his band's gonna deliver. When the rock book's written, Spoon's gonna go down in the damn-near-close-to-genius chapter, no questions asked. Their A Series of Sneaks, Girls Can Tell, Kill the Moonlight triumvirate looks more and more like Sticky Fingers, Exile, Goat's Head Soup every day. That said, the band's most recent LP, 2005's Gimme Fiction, was the first-ever Spoon LP that didn't make you want to immediately take the needle off and go start a band. Misses were thrown in with hits, and any grit had been cleaned from the corners. Solo Daniel is always a treat. Boombox in tow, he tears apart his band's back catalog, offers up rare covers, and his Costello-meets-the-South snarl almost sounds soothing and sweet. Here's just hoping that any new tracks he might preview are more Exile than... all that crap after Some Girls. BRIAN T. SMITH

THE MELVINS, BIG BUSINESS, IOMMI STUBBS

(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) The last time I saw the Melvins, I was going to college in the illustrious state of Idaho. They were playing at this semi-crappy venue called the Big Easy, and Hank Williams III opened up for them, and it was pretty much as awesome as you'd expect (or, in Hank Williams III's case, pretty much as goddamn awful as you'd expect), with the best part by far being the shaking of sheet metal—among the murky onslaught of blurry, heavy sludge, in came that wobbly, thunderous noise of someone—either Buzz Osbourne or one of their various bassists—shaking massive pieces of sheet metal, and with the lights bouncing off the thin, bouncing metal and the noise of surreal fake thunder in the mix, it was fun and weird and most importantly loud, and it was great. Then this drunken douche came up to me and was all, "Hey, what's up?" And I was like, "Uh, hi?" And then he tried to start a fight with me, at which point I was thinking, "Why is this douche trying to fight me? Is seeking out a scrawny kid at a Melvins show in Boise really how one goes about starting fights?" But hey, that's Boise for you. Fucking Boise, man. Anyway: It says a lot that even a drunk douche like that guy couldn't ruin a killer Melvins show, then or tonight or any other night. EH

HEM, OLLABELLE

(Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie) How to explain this band, this group of four people who have written some of the most gorgeous music of this young century? Grace, comfort, quiet persistence, and delicate, heart-crushing prettiness radiate from Hem's songs. The core of pianist Dan Messé and vocalist Sally Ellyson (a purer voice I haven't heard) have continually proven that 2001's fragile masterpiece Rabbit Songs was no fluke. Their third full-length, Funnel Cloud, came out on Tuesday, and this much is clear: Hem knows beauty. Hem knows craft. No irony here, just melody, piano, pedal steel, and the assurance that music in the right hands can be a powerful force for good. JOEL HARTSE

YACHT, E*ROCK, YUMA NORA, SMALL SAILS, DEBASER

(Towne Lounge, 714 SW 20th Pl) See Music, pg. 19.

RIOT COP, MDC

(Laughing Horse Books, 12 NE 10th) See Music, pg. 20.

MONSTER DUDES, VIBE COP, TUNNELS

(Food Hole, 20 NW 3rd) When little Monster Dude Venec heads back to school in the fall, he'll no doubt have one of the best "how I spent my summer vacation" essays in his class. After all, not every six-year-old gets to spend the summer touring and leading a noise band. Along with daddy Monster Dude, AKA Jeremy, the pair creates cacophonous noise and usually perform high-energy live shows; the last time they played Portland, the entire audience got involved in the performance as Venec scrambled into their laps, all the while screaming like a banshee. Tunnels is the solo project of Alarmist and Jackie-O Motherfucker alum Nick Binderman, and this new venture finds him playing with sonic textures and serving up droning, psychedelic jams. CORTNEY HARDING

SUNDAY 9/10

VINCENT BLACK SHADOW, NUDITY,

DARK SKIES

(Food Hole, 20 NW 3rd) Nudity (the band) is Olympia's Velvet Underground. Spanning over epic-length songs, their music is a chugging, driving monster full of druggy guitar, feedback that whines along with the beat, not to mention flute, sitar, and tambourine coloring up all the warhammering. It's tough, blisteringly psychedelic, and races along in unrelenting Hawkwind-ish spirit. Wow. AG

2% MAJESTY, DEAD WESTERN

(Towne Lounge, 714 SW 20th Pl) See Music, pg. 20.

MONDAY 9/11

ACROSS THE TUNDRAS, RABBITS, DJ NATE C

(Tube, 18 NW 3rd) So, here's the scoop on Across the Tundras: doomy, sludgy. Their classic-rock-gone-metal drones along with weighty, head-nodding pulsations until you're so locked into their hypnotic throb you can't do much else than sway with it and listen for the anthem riffs and catchiness amid the death marching. Across the Tundras have come all the way out here from fucking Denver. Don't let 'em down. Rabbits opens. The Rabbits with the upside down "R." You know 'em, you love 'em. Or you don't know 'em and you will love 'em. Either way, you're stoked. AG

DR. DOG, COLD WAR KIDS, ELVIS PERKINS

(Dante's, 1 SW 3rd) Without ever hearing, ahem, Dr. Dog, I would've assumed a sound reminiscent of poorly executed, fusion-tinged, frat rock. A sound you could smash Coors cans on your forehead to while poking your backless-shirt-wearing lady friend. Only because I can't imagine anyone other than a group of Skynyrd-loving, meaty-no-necks attending the brainstorming party to come up with that atrocious name. Moniker travesty aside, Dr. Dog is an alt-rock fan's cup of Maker's Mark. A sort of a perverse combo of Pavement and My Morning Jacket, punched up with a healthy dose of '60s shoo-woppity harmonization. Though Dr. Dog will certainly disappoint those hoping for a showing of the hottest Phi Delta Upsilon ass-rock band, it'll blow the lid off any searching for an evening of honey-tinged country-rock. NOAH SANDERS

TUESDAY 9/12

YELLOW SWANS

(Satyricon, 125 NW 6th Ave) Yellow Swans is a very polarizing band. It's one of those either-you're-on-the-bus-or-off bands, the kind of deal most people don't even consider music. I consider 'em music, and I hope you will too, though I definitely understand if you're a little freaked out by their death scrapes and noise sandpapering. I think it's beautiful, though, and YS's recentish Load Records release, Psychic Secession, is their most beautiful to date. Less killclashRRRRRREEERORR, this one sounds like vacuum cleaners run through pedals, clothes dryers thumping, drowsy undersea noise, stomach acid digesting a sandwich, all sorts of natural, pleasing, leftfield sound. After tonight they leave for a huge tour. Go say, "laters." AG

WEDNESDAY 9/13

THE QUEERS, THE HARD-ONS, THE SODA POP KIDS

(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE 39th) The Queers have been around in one form or another since the early '80s (their debut EP, Love Me, came out in 1982) and I guess this lineup, like all of the others, is Joe Queer and, umm... the two other guys. Joe, old-timer that he is, can still rock the house, and while their new live record, Weekend at Bernie's, probably doesn't break any new ground ("new ground" being in that Screeching Weasel/Mr. T Experience kind of away) I still wanna hear it. But, the real reason to go to this gig is to see Australia's Hard-Ons. I caught these guys a few times in the late '80s and they add a unique twist to the whole pop-punk cottage industry. Ray, Blackie, and Pete will TEACH you something, dammit! You just have to be willing to listen and learn. Promise me you will, okay? TIM HINELY